KOCHI: A seemingly pleasant train journey becomes a nightmare for Lizzie, a ‘white prostitute’.
She finds herself a helpless witness to the racial tensions of American history that was prevailing in the 1940’s. For theatre connoisseurs, the subject of French playwright Jean Paul Sartre’s ‘The Respectful Prostitute’ or ‘The Friendly Whore’ would be very familiar. This classic play by amateur theatre group ‘Kala’ is coming to the capital city and will be staged on June 4 at the Hassan Marikkar hall.
An evidence of the racial tensions during the 1940s in the United States, ‘The Respectful Prostitute’ explores the loss of freedom within a cruel world. First premiered during 1946 in Paris, the play was later staged in different venues around the world.
S Mohan, secretary of ‘Kala’ who is playing a major character ‘Fred’ in the play, says the performance will be a unique one. “’The Respectful Prostitute’ which was last performed here several years ago, did not make an impact,” he said.
The drama has been directed by Raja Varier, head, Performing Arts, Kerala University. “Since Raja was more experienced and adept at handling such challenging subjects, we approached him,” said Mohan.
The director says one needs to understand the subtext of the play, if the message has to come across. play needs to understand the depth of the matter explored in ‘The Respectful Prostitute’ to show it across.
“While coming out with a play, one has to understand the sub text hidden within. The reason there hasn’t been much productions of such political plays is the reluctance of directors to handle scripts with depth.”
Kala’s theatre outing
“Our group which now has 12 members has been active for the past four years. We have staged a total of 15 plays, each time performing something new.” A few of the dramas done by the group include ‘Thahasildarude Achan’ based on a story by Takazhi, ‘Aparichita’ from a song by Tagore and ‘The Proposal’, a play by Chekov.
While Sushama of All India Radio will be donning the role of Lizzie, S Mohan, Hithu, Praveen, Dr Vijayan Thomas and Neeraj Mohan will be acting out the other roles.
Raja Varier, who is completing his Silver Jubilee year in Theatre, will also be honoured on the occasion.
The group plans to stage another play titled ‘A Game of Chess’ in August.
“The aim of our group is to stage new and different dramas for the young generation. While new short stories and novels are being published, no new theatrical works are coming out. What we see are plays being repeated over and again.”